Minority association head put on exit control list

The president of an association representing minorities in Pakistan said on Wednesday that his name had been put on a list preventing him from leaving the country because of his outspoken stance on securing equal rights for religious minorities. "We asked the government why my name was put on the Exit Control List (ECL), but they refused to specify the reasons why they did so," Shahbaz Bhatti, the president of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad. The interior ministry had told him there were no cases or charges as such, but they still refused to give any reason, Bhatti said. "I think it may be because we’ve taken such a bold stand to procure equal rights for Pakistan’s minorities." The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) had already issued a statement condemning the misuse of the ECL, Kamila Hyat, HRCP’s joint-director, told IRIN from the eastern city of Lahore. "The ECL has been used as a tool to harass people in the past, and it is being used as one again," she said, noting that the absence of any filed cases against Bhatti rendered the government’s move to enter his name on the list even more questionable. Bhatti said he had received anonymous phone calls, with callers promising to "eliminate" or "assassinate" him, if he did not drop his minorities' rights campaign. Pakistan’s minorities, especially Christians, have been hardest-hit following the events of 11 September and the subsequent US-led war against terror, with violent backlashes spawning gun and grenade attacks on churches and missionary schools in Pakistan over the past two years. More Christians have died in such extremist attacks than from any other community. According to records maintained by churches, the community numbers close to 10 million nationwide. "We want all discriminatory laws against minorities to be removed," Bhatti said, referring to some laws which, he said, encouraged discrimination against minorities - such as the blasphemy law. In 1998, Dr John Joseph, the bishop of the Faisalabad diocese, publicly committed suicide in protest against the use of the blasphemy law, which, the World Council of Churches said in a subsequent letter of protest to the Pakistani ambassador in Geneva, "is being abused and misused by extremists". "Our immediate concern is the frequent persecution and victimisation of Christians that have resulted from unwarranted and indiscriminate application of Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code relating to the laws of blasphemy," the letter said. "Misusing the blasphemy law, extremist elements and groups have freely incited religious hatred and animosity against the religious minorities. This has greatly contributed to the growing environment of religious intolerance and has placed religious minorities under a state of siege," it maintained.